


eyes always seeking

by sketchiespence



Series: Like Real People Do [1]
Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Book 1: Clockwork Angel, Book 2: Clockwork Prince, Book 3: Clockwork Princess, Canon Compliant, Drug Use, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character, Sickfic, Yin Fen, is the title from a hozier song, the infernal devices - Freeform, there was a terrible lack of TID sick fics on this site, youll never know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23300188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sketchiespence/pseuds/sketchiespence
Summary: Tessa decides to try and find a cure for Jem's addiction. Things go terribly wrong. (She comes into contact with yin fen. And we gotta deal with the consequences of that.)
Relationships: Jem Carstairs/Tessa Gray, Jem Carstairs/Tessa Gray/Will Herondale, Tessa Gray/Will Herondale
Series: Like Real People Do [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675639
Comments: 27
Kudos: 36





	1. kissed your scalp and caressed your brain

Will Herondale wasn’t looking for a cure anymore. Tessa didn’t know when he’d stopped. Months ago. Maybe years. Either way, it was too soon. Was it before or after the color was leeched from Jem’s hair? His eyes? What did Jem look like before _yin fen_ ripped the color out of his eyes? Perhaps brown, like spring soil. Full of life and potential. Like cinnamon on top of hot chocolate. Or black with gold flecks, like the night sky. Tessa was assured the effects were permanent. And fatal. She wouldn’t get to see the color behind Jem’s eyes.

But a year ago, she was assured that all magic was sapped from the world.

She was assured that Nate was better than his faults.

She was set to live out romance with Heathcliff and John Thornton.

And she was wrong.

She could be wrong again. Let Will and Charlotte and the Clave despair. Let them give up. It didn’t take an army to find a cure. It only took one person. So she started with her best clue, and she went to the Ifrit Den. Not alone, of course. She didn’t have a death wish. Mortmain’s location was still unknown. It would be an act of idiocy to leave the Institute unaccompanied. She was already attacked in the streets by clockwork demons once; she didn’t want to tempt fate again. Cyril waited outside the den with instructions to sound every alarm in London if she didn’t return in five minutes. Tessa hadn’t much experience with warlock drugs, but judging by the consumers’ limp bodies scattered around the den, she didn’t want any. Would it affect her more? Less? In any case, if the drugs were forced upon her, Cyril could fetch help.

But Tessa had a second line of defense.

Will made a terrible row yesterday at dinner. After insulting Bridget’s cooking and singing again, he sloshed some of his soup onto one of his black leather gloves. He made a big show about it all and forgot his gloves at the dinner table. Tessa had every intention of bringing them to his room, but... she never made it to knocking at the door. He would say something again. Something too terrible. Or something too nice. She couldn’t bear either. She couldn’t trust herself around him half the time. The last time he had been alone with her was in Aloysius Starkweather’s keep, after having a nightmare. She didn’t want to revisit the moment. So she kept the gloves.

She waited until the dead of night to try it at first. She bolted her door, just in case someone came rushing in. Sophie slept near the kitchen, so she would be far away. But Jem slept across the hall. She couldn’t imagine explaining herself if Jem saw her change in Will. There was no good explanation. It was a breach of confidence, wasn’t it? To change without permission, especially if you were good friends with the person.

But were Will and she friends?

“Not tonight,” Tessa had told her reflection.

The first change was the worst. It was the same and very different for everyone. It felt like being submerged in ice water. Like every nerve in her body unraveled into tongues of fire and reformed. Pin pricks and panic. Tessa searched for the light, and when she found it, it was familiar. She grabbed at it until she could feel her hands again. She grasped the sides of her vanity, gasping for air. Don’t make a noise, she told herself. Don’t cry out. Tessa bit her lip to bottle back the pain and the wave of nausea that rolled over her. And she tried not to think about anatomical differences.

Finally, she got the nerve to look in the mirror. Will’s green eyes stared back at her through a mess of black hair. She was ever so slightly shorter, but she didn’t notice it. Her attention was stolen by the sight of Will in her nightdress.

Tessa burst into laughter before she could stop herself.

It didn’t take much effort to steal some of Will’s clothes from the laundry the next day. She just pretended to look for chocolate in the pantry. Bridget didn’t know her well enough to realize this was a bold-face lie. Cyril was privy to the secret. He had to be. But from what Tessa could tell, he hadn’t let the secret slip. Surely, if he had, the entire Institute would have stopped her. Tessa tried not to imagine Will confronting her while she looked like this.

She tried to look disheveled. That part was easy too. The layers and layers of men’s clothing were complicated, but her ineptitude could be seen as Will’s lack of care. If her tie was out of place, someone might think Will had gotten fed up with it.

Jem and she had found Will in this place just days ago. It seemed so far away now, but the den almost looked frozen in time. Very little had changed in three days. The bar was still sopping and stained with various liquids. The lounge singer wore the same outfit, though she looked desperately tired. Even in the corner, the singing man drugged out of his mind still wasted away. Tessa tried to look uncaring and hoped her sympathy didn’t show in her eyes.

“Back already?” The red-skinned warlock greeted her.

“Were you counting the seconds?” Tessa had prepared the line. It felt silly coming from her, but she foraged on.

“I told you, we’re bought up. Terrible situation. If your friend wants something more entertaining, we have all sorts of options. What you had the other day, for instance—“

“I’m not here for myself,” Tessa interrupted.

“Figures,” the warlock flashed an insincere look of sympathy.

“I want information,” Tessa explained. “I want to know more about the drug—“

“This again? You shadowhunters are too much trouble for what you’re worth.” The warlock turned away from him, moving to clean up the bar. Tessa followed.

“I’ve been a loyal customer, haven’t I?”

“You haven’t had much of a choice,” the warlock sneered. She spotted a bit of powder on the bar and considered it for a moment. She dipped her finger in it and brought it to her mouth. Tessa wanted to cringe. “No one else is supplying _yin fen_.”

“Though they might if demand is as high as you say it is,” Tessa observed, slipping into a bar stool.

“Are you drunk?” The warlock looked at Tessa/Will closely. “You sound different.”

 _Welsh_ , Tessa remembered. _Less English, more Welsh._

“Drunk on your company,” Tessa improvised. “Who is your supplier?”

“Who is my _supplier_?”

“Where does the drug come from?” Tessa pressed.

“Are you trying to go around me? We have a business to run,” the warlock growled.

“But business seems to be doing so well, right? You can’t fear losing one customer.”

It was the wrong thing to say. The warlock pushed against Will’s chest, sending Tessa sprawling to the floor. The impact didn’t hurt too terribly. In hindsight, Tessa realized she was benefiting from the runes across Will’s body. Strength. Resilience. Even her eyesight had been better. Before she could roll to her side, two bouncers grabbed her hands. One had sickly green skin, like a shedding reptile. The second had a face like a spider, mostly obscured beneath a high collar and top hat.

“I warned you last time, shadowhunter, to stop threatening us. Your friends show up—another shadowhunter! You know the rules. We only tolerate you. And now you’re throwing your weight around again. You need to learn a couple lessons. We aren’t going to kill you; stop squirming. Chorin will break your arm if you keep that up. No, we’re not going to kill a customer. Just give an overdue lesson.”

The warlock ducked behind the bar again, rolling her sleeves higher.

“And when we let you go,” she continued. “You might be tempted to bring all your little friends down on our heads. Track down the demons like you do when you’re playing Knights Templar. But before you do that, remember who is keeping your friend alive. It’s not you. It’s not the Consul. It’s not the Clave. It’s me. Hold his head still.”

The sleepless lounge singer approached and held Tessa by the hair. Her grip was impressively strong, and Tessa felt some of Will’s hair get pulled out by the roots. She didn’t know what to do. Would Cyril hear her if she cried out now? He couldn’t fight them all, even if he did. He couldn’t retrieve the Institute fast enough. Tessa prayed for a moment that Cyril had told someone. Someone, anyone. Let Henry burst through the door now, holding a seraph blade. Let Bridget come, wielding a rolling pin. 

The warlock retrieved a small pouch from behind the bar. She came around and straddled Tessa’s chest.

“Oh, don’t kick,” the warlock said. “If you hurt me, you’ll be in worse trouble. So be a good boy.” And with playful concentration, the warlock emptied a small pouch of powder just beneath Tessa’s nose. Tessa recognized the smell first.

Burnt sugar.

Like Jem.

Tessa bucked and kicked and fought to shake her head, but she was locked into a vise.

“Take a deep breath, sweetheart,” the warlock encouraged. Tessa couldn’t. She couldn’t. She was swimming in the warnings she’d been given.

 _Don’t touch it,_ Jem had said. _You can’t breathe it in, Tessa. Please go. A man doesn’t want the girl he loves on his hands and knees. Please._

“No?” The warlock sneered above Tessa. She glanced at the green-skinned man. “Make him breathe.”

Tessa heard her arm coming out of place before she felt it. A sickening pop as her arm dislocated from her shoulder. A wave of nausea and needle-point pricks ran down her arm. She went numb for one second before her arm felt like it was on fire. It felt like sticking her hand into a boiling pot of water, up to the shoulder. Nothing at first, then everything. She took a deep breath to scream, and in doing so, took a deep breath of _yin fen_.


	2. i knew that look dear

Cyril was yelling for help before the carriage had stopped. Tessa was on the floor of the carriage, staring up at the fabric flowers on the ceiling. She realized she was in a daze, but she didn’t want it to stop. Colors were so clear. Even though it was so dark, even though the only light in the carriage was the moonlight coming through the windows, she could see everything. She could see each colorful thread, each speck of dust in the air. She felt the blood running through the veins of her hand. Her hearing was suddenly acute. She could hear the world outside, almost as if she were omniscient. The horses were loud against the cobblestones, but she could hear the roar of the Thames. She could hear Cyril panting for breath. A drunk man was busking nearby. There was a low hum coming from somewhere, and Tessa almost believed it was the sound of the stars. She never felt so alive.

Tessa didn’t pay any mind when Cyril brought the carriage to a halt. She was content to stay where she was. The world was overwhelming as it was in the dark carriage. Any glimpse of light might kill her. A breath of fresh air might feel like taking her first breath again. But Cyril didn’t open the carriage first. She heard him run across stone, cut across grass to the Institute doors. She heard the yelling, the screaming for help. Tessa had never noticed Cyril’s voice before, not like this. It was so unique.

It was a small eternity before the carriage door opened.

“Your voice is so different from Thomas’,” Tessa said.

“What happened to her? It’s the middle of the night. Why are you both outside?”

It wasn’t Cyril.

“Will,” Tessa said. “You sound so different.”

“Can you get up, Tessa?”

Tessa tried to lift her neck for a moment, but a funny thought struck her. Her head thumped back to the carriage floor. “I thought I was the one who asked too many questions.” She couldn’t see Will at this angle, so she focused again on the ceiling again. She loved the sound of Will’s voice, but it was difficult to focus. It was like bottling the ocean. There was too much.

“What happened to her? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything—“

“Why is she wearing men’s clothes? A-are those my clothes?”

“She was attacked,” Cyril said, reaching into the carriage. One arm hooked underneath her knees and another looped beneath her shoulders. Tessa’s head lifted from the carriage, and everything became much worse. The sensation was akin to jolting awake in the middle of the night. That flash of adrenaline, confusion, outright fear and instinct. Tessa’s body jolted from the movement.

“Put me down,” she wheezed.

“We have to get her inside,” Cyril insisted, adjusting his grip.

“Who attacked her? What did they do, Cyril?”

“I don’t know,” Cyril admitted. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”

Tessa lost interest in the conversation. Still lying in the carriage floor, she caught the smell of the world around her. She’d been overpowered with the sights and sounds, her other senses had taken a backseat. But the smells. The Institute had a smell. How could she not have noticed before? The vines snaking up between the windows were stronger than rosemary. The night air was as overpowering as garlic. The remnants of her own perfume fought for her attention, but a smell far more lovely caught it. Rain. It might have been Will’s clothes or Will himself. But it was like that day in the attic. Just like it, with the omission of water and blood. How could Tessa have failed to pay attention to smell all these years? It felt wasteful. As if she were sitting at a banquet and only taking a glass of water. Like sitting in the Library of Alexandria and reading a limerick.

“You get her legs. I’ll get her shoulders,” Will was saying.

“Please don’t,” Tessa said.

“We have to, Tess—“

“Leave me.”

“I won’t leave you, Tess. We’re going to bring you inside. Can you move at all? Sit up.”

An arm behind her back lifted her to a sitting position. Her legs were halfway out of the carriage. And the world erupted in light.

It was like midsummer sun outside. All the noise and chaos and terror of London came down in one swoop. Everything was too in focus, as if the world were leaning into her. She closed her eyes, but sound accosted her. She could hear Cyril’s heart. She could hear Will’s heart. She heard the air enter his lungs, the muscles moving around to accommodate it all. Her ears rang like wind chimes in a thunderstorm. She couldn’t feel her legs anymore. Her fingertips went numb.

“Tessa, stop. It’s okay, we aren’t going to hurt you,” Will assured her. His grip got tighter. It was like a vice. Her nerves felt like molten iron, bright red and searing hot. He released her shoulders and moved one hand to her neck, keeping her head erect. She ought to have felt embarrassed. She was disheveled. Her hair was around her shoulders. She must look ghastly. But between her lashes, she could only focus on Will. His other hand moved to support her head. “Tessa…”

He leaned forward, eyes half open.

“You smell like…You smell like Jem,” Will said. His eyes suddenly became wide. He pulled back and the color drained from his face. “Where did you take her?"

“She wanted to go to the Devil’s Taven.” Cyril explained.

Will swept Tessa out of the carriage and into his arms. “Get Jem. Wake everyone up. Go!”

“But you—“

“Go! Go or I’ll never forgive you. You shouldn’t have taken her there. What an irresponsible thing to do. This is your fault!” Will said shakily. His words were breathless, and didn’t cut as he wanted them to. Tessa was familiar with his cutting words. These weren’t them. “Go! I’ll take her to the infirmary.”

Tessa felt Will carry her up a set of stairs. Even now, her mind was overwhelmed. She couldn’t even close her eyes against it all. She couldn’t move a muscle. It was like her body wasn’t hers. Any movement of muscle would feel like a thousand snakes running over her soul. She could hardly breathe. It was like inhaling glass.

“You didn’t go there on purpose,” Will said. He moved past the threshold of the Institute, carrying her into the foyer. “Tell me you didn’t go there on purpose. It was a set up. Someone lied to you. You wouldn’t do this to Jem.”

“What?” Tessa struggled to breathe.

“You took _yin fen_ ,” Will said, hoisting her higher in his arms. “I can smell it on you! You went to the Devil’s Tavern.”

“I did.”

“Why?” Will shouted at her. “You know what this is doing to Jem! I know you’re angry with me for going there, but I would never be so selfish as to take the drug that is killing the best person in both of our lives. If this is your sick way of getting back at me for the way I’ve treated you, it’s the most misguided, childish, foolish—“

Tessa wrenched herself out of his arms, pushing against his chest. He held on too long, and they both landed on the hardwood floors in the Institute atrium. Tessa felt the impact, but the pain was nonexistent.

“Selfish?” Tessa seethed, pulling herself onto her elbows. She twisted to look at Will. “I’m selfish?”

“Tessa—“

“ _I’m_ selfish?” Tessa continued. “Have you looked in the mirror recently, Will?”

The change was fast. Where previously it was like a thousand pin pricks and drowning in the dark, now it was like a soft breeze. Her hair shrunk back, darkening in front of her own eyes. Her hands got heavier. Will’s mind was clear now. She could find anything she wanted. She saw Wales. She saw books and poetry and Blackfriar’s Bridge. She saw a white-haired boy training alone.

Will froze in front of her, one hand outreached.

“I see you, Will,” Tessa said, struggling to keep her head raised. The world pressed closer. The stars were threatening to fall around her, to fill her chest, and crack her from the inside out. “I’ve always seen you. I know you walk the streets at night. I know you’re trying to hide behind the drinks and the drugs and the women. But it’s all talk, isn’t it? You were my first kiss, but I was your first too, wasn’t I?”

Will looked away, as if that would break the spell. “Tessa, stop.”

“I don’t think you know me at all, Will.”

Tessa dropped to the floor again, overwhelmed by the muscles screaming in her arms. She was suddenly very hot, as if boiling water was poured over her. Her breath hitched, and cry of pain escaped.

Will was beside her in an instant, hands wrapping around her torso.

But the world had so much more inside it.

The floorboards were shaking.

Footsteps were getting closer.

Water was running from a tap.

The pipes were screaming between the rust and water pressure.

She heard a door slam.

She didn’t hear the others when they entered the atrium, wearing all manner of nightclothes. She couldn’t see them. She didn’t feel herself being lifted into Will’s arms. Tessa was listening to the thunderheads coming in from the south. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of sand and water and wind churning in the sky above them. Thunder and lightning and earth-shaking wind. It would rain soon.


	3. i thought i was flying but maybe i'm dying

Charlotte exited the Infirmary as the first peel of thunder rolled over London. She flinched from the sound, hand flying to cover her heart. This is bad, Jem observed. It took a lot to shake Charlotte. Once, Will burned a large portion of the drawing room in a fit of rage after a book ended in a particularly insulting way. Charlotte hadn’t lifted an eyebrow then. A collection of shadowhunters crowded around her, each one dressed differently than the last. Henry wore a nightcap. Cyril still wore his streetclothes. Jem himself was halfways into his shadowhunter gear.

"Should she be in there alone?" Will asked.

"Sophie is with her," Charlotte said.

"Can Sophie manage alone?"

"What happened?" Jem cut in. "She's not injured?"

"Not like you may think," Charlotte hesitated to say. "She's not speaking anymore. I can't get a clear answer out of her. It's like she's stunned. If you shake her, she'll look you in the eye, but that's about it. She's staring at the ceiling. I can't fix this. I'm calling the Silent Brothers. They'll know what to do."

“What do you mean she’s staring at the ceiling?” Jem said softly.

"What can I do?" Cyril asked.

Charlotte paused. "I suppose you could help Sophie, if she needs you. But it might be wise to stay out of the Infirmary for now."

"Why?" Jem and Cyril asked at the same time.

Charlotte glanced at Will. "Tessa needs space right now."

"Charlotte's right," Will said.

Jem stared at Will.

 _What’s wrong_ , he tried to convey. _What’s really wrong?_

Will wouldn’t meet his gaze.

Charlotte excused herself from the group. Henry followed. Their footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors, dwarfed versions of the thunder overhead. Jem listened as rain began to hit the roof and gutters of the Institute. One drop, then a few. Soon, it was like a symphony of applause, as if the entire Institute was receiving a standing ovation. It was an awful sound now. Rain was supposed to be glorious. But this was a very unpleasant situation to associate it with.

“What happened to Tessa?” Jem turned to Cyril.

Cyril gave him a look of pure fear. Hardly anyone gave Jem that look anymore. Demons hardly feared him. Shadowhunters didn’t see him as a threat. Mundanes hardly saw him at all. But Cyril’s face contorted then. Eyebrows knitted together, neck bent down. Like a dog knowing it’s going to get kicked. Jem didn’t know whether to be shocked or afraid at that. What could have happened.

“Cyril doesn’t know,” Will cut in.

“What do you mean?” Jem frowned. He turned back to Cyril. “You were out with her, weren’t you? How do you not know what happened?”

“Cyril,” Will said softly. “Perhaps now is a good time to get the carriage and bring it to the stables—“

“No, it’s _not_ ,” Jem seethed.

“We need to talk, James.”

Cyril took a step away from the both of them.

“What happened to her, Cyril?” Jem all but begged. “You didn’t hurt her?”

“I wouldn’t!” Cyril paled terribly. “You can’t think that!”

“Cyril, just go. I’ll tell Jem what’s happened.” Will took Jem by the elbow, leading him to the training room while Cyril bolted for the front door. Will hardly made it two steps before Jem wrenched his arm out of his _parabati’s_ grip.

“What are the two of you playing at?”

“I need to talk to you, you idiot, and I don’t want to do it in the bloody hall.” Will shouted.

“Why can’t we talk here?”

“Why are you fighting me on this, James?”

Jem didn’t have a good answer. It felt wrong to leave the Infirmary door. It would be like abandoning Tessa. If she was badly hurt, he should be in there. One didn’t leave when their loved ones were injured. Least of all if one had so few loved ones to begin with. Tessa didn’t have family. Her parents weren’t going to come running to her bedside. Her brother certainly wasn’t coming. Jem was hardly a suitable substitute. Tessa deserved the world. She deserved all of London, all of England at her bedside.

Will stalked off to the training room, leaving Jem at the infirmary door.

“Are you coming?” Will shouted, not bothering to turn and look over his shoulder.

Jem hesitated.

And he couldn’t help the impulse. He reached for the door with one horribly pale hand. The door opened a crack under his touch, and Jem leaned into the light. He caught a glimpse of the scene. The first thing he noticed was the lack of blood. He expected that, he realized. Hadn’t Tessa been attacked? He saw Sophie in passing, but he focused on the line of hospital beds laid out in rows by the wall. One bed was disheveled, covers torn and thrown to the floor. A pile of clothes was thrown on the floor at random. A tie here, trousers there. Before Jem could process this information, he saw Tessa.

Her hair was undone, falling around her shoulders like a forest fire. It was like that night she came to his room. The night she stopped him from destroying his violin. But she’d looked serene then. She had looked thoughtful and kind and worried. Standing with her had been like standing in a river. Soft and moving and sacred. But now…

Tessa was standing in one corner of the infirmary, back pressed against the wall. She wore a plain white smock; generic infirmary clothes. She was staring up at the ceiling, expressionless. Hair wild. Mouth agape. Eyes dilated to the edges, no white left in them.

 _She’s not bleeding_ , Jem thought.

A peel of thunder came down overhead, as if the sky was cracking in two.

Jem watched as Tessa dropped to the floor, cradling her head in her hands, as if her skull were cracking in two. She let out a scream of pain as Sophie rushed to her side, Jem quickly shut the door.

And he followed Will into the training room.

How had she never counted the raindrops on her ceiling before? Why didn’t she notice how clear they were before? It was as each drop was a missed heartbeat. She felt it in her chest. It was exhilarating and terrifying.

It was a lesson in ingratitude. Tessa hated her past self with a vengeance. It was like looking back on your childhood and discovering a memory turned sour. Her aunt Harriet bought her a lovely dress when she was seven years old. She wrecked it playing in the street. ‘Unsalvagable’ was the word Aunt Harriet used. It took Tessa years to realize how much money Aunt Harriett must have spent. True, young Tessa wasn’t suited to the frills and itchy fabric, but that didn’t matter in hindsight. She’d been selfish. She’d been ungrateful.

And now Tessa was realizing how blind she was to the world around her. Seventeen years, wasted. Myopic and tone deaf.

It was all like music. The rain. The heartbeats. The sound of the infirmary door closing.

But did it have to be so loud?

Thunder cut through the sky, and it felt like Tessa’s bones were breaking inside her.

“I don’t understand,” Jem said.

“She went to the Ifrit den,” Will explained again. “It’s _yin fen_ , Jem. I know it. She went there alone. She didn’t even tell Cyril what she was doing.”

“She wouldn’t go alone,” Jem reasoned desperately. “She would have told me. Us!”

“I smelled it on her, Jem. She used it.”

“She wouldn’t!” Jem shouted. He felt ill. The room was beginning to tilt to the side, and his chest tightened around his lungs. He reached up, loosening his collar. A fleeting feeling of disgust passed over him, at his clothes. He began to shrug out of the shadowhunter leather. “She knows not to. After all this, surely she knows not to touch the damn stuff.”

“I thought so too,” Will said, looking gently at his _parabati._ “I can’t tell you what she’s thinking. I don’t think I know her at all.”

“What are you talking about?” Jem shouted suddenly.

Will stared, shocked to hear his friend raise his voice. It was like seeing the sky turn red. It didn’t happen.

“ _Tessa wouldn’t do this,_ ” Jem continued. “She knows what the drug does. She knows it kills people. She knows it’s killing me! You know what this means, Will. She’ll want more. Like I did. What happens then, Will? We both watch her hair turn white like mine? I’d rather die first! It’s _my_ fault! She wouldn’t have _known_ about _yin fen_ without me coming into her life. She can’t touch yin fen, Will. It’s not possible. We can’t have let this happen. We’re shadowhunters. We’ve got the blood of angels, and we couldn’t tell when she left the Institute? We didn’t hear anything, suspect anything? Her room is across from mine! Where was I?”

“Jem­—“

“She was at dinner with us just hours ago! We should have seen something was wrong,” Jem said. “Will, please tell me you’re mistaken. You can’t have known. She didn’t confirm it, did she?”

Will hesitated.

“It’s just a suspicion,” Jem pleaded.

Will stayed silent. They stared for a long moment before Will looked away at the empty fireplace. Jem frowned, swallowing back a sudden urge to cry. He still couldn’t understand why Will had gone to the Ifrit den earlier that week. He still didn’t want to forgive him for making a game of toying with his own life. Toying with the thing that was torturing him. Jem would give anything to be free of this prison, this addiction. It ate his every thought. It was like a specter, standing in the corner of every room, reminding him that he’s dependent. He’s terminal. He’s less. He could hardly run without shutting down. He couldn’t go three days without facing the drug again. He wouldn’t have children. He wouldn’t have a wife. Who would want a man like him?

_You are beautiful, James Carstairs._

Jem turned away from Will, desperate to get out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Will called after him.

“I’m going to talk with Tessa.”


	4. they always ask you not to leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Y'all said you wanted to see Jem in emotional pain, so I'm here to deliver.

Despite Sophie’s interventions, Tessa wouldn’t be persuaded into an Infirmary bed. She tried at first, just to placate Sophie, but it left Tessa to focus on her sensations. She was on her feet before the sensory overload drove her into hysterics. Tessa rebelled against the change of clothes for a moment, but they were much more comfortable than the layers and layers of clothes she’d worn to impersonate Will. It didn’t feel like wearing boiling water anymore. But Tessa kept glancing at the skin of her arms, watching for it to blister and peel away.

The sleeves of the tunic went down to her wrists, though that was too close to her hands. Her hands felt like they were on fire already; she didn't need the distracting fabric that close. She'd picked at the sleeves, tried to unravel them, tried to cut them with her teeth, but Sophie noticed. Sophie gently rolled up the sleeves, asking if that was better. It was, but Tessa didn't bother answering. Her attention was stolen by the long pants she'd been given. It was like the drawers she wore underneath her petticoats but more loose. And long enough to cover her bare feet. Sophie noticed the shift in attention, and she cuffed the pants to the ankle. That was better. Tessa could stand easy now.

"You need to lay down, miss," Sophie said.

Tessa didn't see why.

But she didn't bother arguing. It wasn't an argument she was interested in having at the moment. Why have the argument if she knew she was right? Why argue when the other person was convinced of their own verity? Tessa realized sound of her own voice might actually deafen her, like the rolls of thunder coming down on London proper. Her skull was a boney echo chamber.

Tessa was learning. She could recognize the pull to each sense like it was a door in a hallway. If she opened the door to the world of sight, it would sweep her away again. She would be lost for minutes, hours, in the lights and colors of the room. It would stun her. If she opened the door to the sea of sound around her, she would focus only on that. Someone could slap her, and she wouldn't feel it. She would hear it. She would hear the blood rush to the surface of her skin. She would hear the echo of the action bounce off the walls of the room. But she could ignore everything else. The world would be cast into one aesthetic. A moment ago, when everyone was gathered around the Infirmary door, she could hear each of their heartbeats. Five people of different sizes and ages. It was like an avant garde drumming. Out of sync. Out of time. Except for Will and Jem. She could tell, even through the door, even with the talking and the thunder. Their hearts were in sync. One beat at the same time the other did. She was tempted to listen forever, as if she were the only audience member in a performance at Royal Albert Hall. They deserved the attention. It was a small beauty, but one that deserved to be appreciated nonetheless.

But once everyone left, Tessa felt her conscious mind fighting the euphoria. _Move_ , it said.

So Tessa moved, despite Sophie's protests and attempts to block her way. Tessa moved toward a vanity covered in fresh rags and bottles of liquid. Witch hazel. Peppermint oil. Jar of ground willow bark. She ignored the urge to stare at each bottle and the way the light reflected on the wood. Like stars. _No. Focus. Focus on the mirror_.

And she was looking at a stranger.

Tessa might have recognized her own hair, but it was ghastly. As if she’d teased it for a pompadour but forgotten finish the style. Stray hairs stuck in all directions. Windblown. Had she done this? In those first moments after leaving the Ifrit Den, it was a blur. She’d panicked. They had jeered at her as she left, Tessa remembered. But she couldn’t remember when she’d dropped Will’s appearance. She tried to cover her ears at first, when the world started to seep in. She remembered tearing at her hair in an attempt to distract herself. Now, it was as if she were wearing a bale of hay. One strand was brown. The next red. Copper and black and orange and white and mud and coffee and cedar and gold—

But that wasn't the worst of it. Her skin was ghastly pale. Her lips were white, as if she really had been wounded in the Ifrit Den. The thought worried her. She knew she wasn't bleeding. She couldn't feel it. She couldn't smell it. Her senses were so overloaded. Pain ought to have registered. But she'd dropped to the floor in the atrium after Will dropped her. She landed on her elbow and knees. The pain ought to have been striking. It should have incapacitated her, at least for a moment. But it hadn't. Tessa realized that she could be terribly wounded and not know it. _Adrenaline._ Soldiers could be shot on the battlefield and not realize for hours, days even. Adrenaline numbed them to the pain. The thought scared her. She was so pale. Maybe she was bleeding out. When she finally met her own eyes in the mirror, it drove her to hysterics.

Black eyes. It was like looking at the night sky in London. No stars. Nothing. The skin around her eyes was red and purple. Angry and near translucent. Tessa gripped the sides of the vanity, and she tried not to scream.

Jem entered the Infirmary without hesitation. When he glimpsed Tessa in nothing but Infirmary clothes, he realized he probably should have. She wasn't wearing a corset. She wasn't even wearing shoes. She stood in front of the vanity, staring at her own reflection. Jem noted her white knuckled grip on the wood, and he bit down on his bottom lip. Her hair was down, but he'd seen it so before. The first time, of course, was when he'd seen her Change into Camille Belcourt all those months ago. Will told him about her ability to change her appearance, explaining that it was uncanny and perfect.

 _Not a detail amiss_ , Will had said. _She changed into Jessamine at the breakfast table. She had everything down to the voice! I’ve never seen anything like it. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, what with what we deal with on a daily basis. But Jem… If it wasn't rude, I would ask her to show you in person._

 _When has being rude ever stopped you_ , Jem had retorted.

When Camille suggested infiltrating de Quincey's party, Tessa didn't balk at the vampire's offer to impersonate her. Jem didn't know what he expected when Tessa took Camille's necklace to Change. Perhaps he thought it would be an uncanny impression of the woman. Some sort of talented performance. But Will was right. It was fast; Jem would have missed it if he blinked. Her dark hair brushed to one side, as if pushed by an ethereal wind, and came down blonde. Almost as if it was a matter of lighting, not magic. It wasn’t Camille’s smooth voice that shocked Jem the most. It wasn’t the unbeating heart that shocked him either, though Tessa was stunned by that for a moment. No, it was the fangs that shocked Jem. Initially, Jem couldn’t understand why that fact shocked him. Why that, of all things? He should have anticipated the fangs. It was only in hindsight that he realized he wanted to kiss Tessa, even back then. He was always so aware of her. Where she was in the room. What her expression gave away. If she was smiling or not. Of course he noticed the fangs.

It took weeks of pensive violin playing to come to terms with the fact that he liked Tessa. He liked Tessa because she was everything good and brave and smart and gentle. She didn’t shy away from his violin playing like some did. Some people were uncomfortable being an audience. They would squirm when he played, just because they had no way of responding. Few people had the language to respond to a nonverbal performance. People could hear words with singing and respond in turn. People could relate to a book, to a story. But a violin?

Tessa could though. Tessa never interrupted the song. She let it wash over her like a wave upon the rocks. But the joy of that realization was fleeting. He loved her, yes, but he knew it was a useless kind of love. He couldn’t tell her of his affections, not with his condition. Not with his lack of promise. He had nothing to give her now, and he had nothing to leave her in the end. She wouldn’t be a fortunate wife. She wouldn’t be a fortunate widow. He explained the addiction to Tessa then, just to relieve himself of hope.

And every glance she spared him since was a treasure, despite the fear that she was waiting for him to get worse. Show the wear and tear of the addiction. Lose his voice. Lose his sight. Stop walking. And finally, it broke him. In a moment of weakness, he’d admitted it all after they’d collected Will from the Ifrit Den. He admitted all of it. Every fear and self-hatred and every desire he’d dare to feel. He wanted her to know how unfair it all was, to have so much love for another person and have no way of expressing it. He wanted to be evil for a moment. Take the liberty of telling her feelings for her, even if it hurt both of them. Even if it hurt to face the truth, that she looked at him like a dying patient.

But it wasn’t the truth at all.

She didn’t yell at him, didn’t step into the same rhythm of rage to which he was playing. She didn’t leave his room though she had every right to. She stepped closer. She stepped close enough that he saw the flecks of gold in her eyes and the dark ring around her irises. The color more valuable than gold. If it could be bottled and sold, it would be the most valuable item in the world. More valuable than ambrosia and black gold and lapis lazuli and saffron and jade. It was a detail so sacred, that one rarely got the chance to study it. And she shattered every doubt he’d ever had about himself. She kissed him out of desire. Not out of pity. Not a moment of it was pity. Her hair was down then, as it was now. Gasping for breath.

But now, she was frightened.

“Tessa,” he whispered, stepping into the room.

“Master Jem,” Sophie stood from one of the beds, eyes wide.

“Hello, Sophie. Is she alright?” Jem knew she wasn’t. “Can I get you anything?”

Sophie glanced at Tessa, who hadn’t moved from the vanity. Jem followed her gaze.

“No,” Sophie mumbled. “I don’t need anything. Did Charlotte tell you what happened to her? Do they know?”

Jem frowned. “No, Charlotte didn’t tell us anything.”

It was like Tessa didn’t hear either of them. And Jem wanted to talk with her. He wanted to scream. He didn’t want to keep up appearances anymore. Not now. But what if he was wrong? He couldn’t accuse Tessa of drug use in front of Sophie, not if there was a chance he was wrong. And he couldn’t ask Sophie to leave. Being alone with Tessa, though it happened before, was bad form. And he didn’t want anyone thinking he took advantage of this situation. So, Jem resolved to handle this with care. He moved to her side, sitting on the cot beside the vanity. He placed his cane on the mattress.

“Tessa,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

But she didn’t move. Jem noticed with pain that her eyes were dilated to their limits. It was a look he recognized, but not from her.

“Tessa, talk to me,” he pleaded.

Nothing.

“Tessa,” Jem began again. “Where did you go? Please talk to me, Tessa. I won’t be angry with you. I’m just frightened.” He took one hand and reached to touch hers. But at the first brush of his fingers, Tessa caught his wrist. When he looked at her face again, her eyes were locked on his.

“Jem.”

“You’re alright, Tessa.”

“I’m not,” she replied.

Her grip on his wrist was tight, though not painful. Very carefully, he stood from the bed. Her eyes tracked his, though her expression was unreadable. Before she could freeze again, Jem cut through the darkness. He recognized the look in her eyes. If he was right, her mind must be overwhelmed. If he didn’t act quick, she would lose herself in the roar.

“You went to the Devil’s Tavern, didn’t you?”

Tessa flinched.

“Tessa, please.”

“I did,” Tessa breathed, searching his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

It shouldn’t have shaken him so much. His heart shouldn’t have dropped to his shoes, but hearing it from Tessa was confirmation. Will could have been wrong. But Tessa wouldn’t lie. Tessa, who called him beautiful. She’d gone to the Ifrit Den. It was suddenly very hard to breathe.

“It was a mistake,” Jem insisted, his voice breaking. “Someone tricked you.”

Tessa shook her head ever so gently. “It wasn’t a trick. I wanted to go there. Don’t blame Cyril.”

“Cyril?” Jem repeated. He reached to take her other hand. She didn’t move away as his fingers wrapped around her wrist. Her pulse hammered against his fingers, and his heart skipped a beat. It was like drowning. He couldn’t decide what to feel. Shame. Disappointment. Heartbreak. What did this mean? Why? Why would she have taken the drug? Had he misjudged her, misjudged everything? Only a few nights ago, they had kissed in his bedroom, only to be interrupted by the spilling of the powder on the floor. He thought Tessa was focused on him. But what if the drug caught her true attention? “Tessa, how could you do this?”

Tessa flinched at his rising voice.

“I know it was foolish—,“ Tessa began.

Jem released her wrist and took a step away from her. She held tight to his wrist. “I can’t hear this, Tessa.”

“Hear it, Jem, please,” Tessa whispered. “I should have told you where I was going. I shouldn’t have gone alone.”

“Alone? Tessa, you shouldn’t have gone at all.”

Tessa’s eyes began to glaze over. Her pupils shrunk to the size of needlepoints and flared back out. Her breath hitched, and her eyebrows knit together. Her grip loosened on his wrist, and she leaned into him, steadying herself.

“Tessa?”

Tessa bent at the waist, crying out in pain. Her other hand shot out, grabbing the front of his coat. Her eyes shut hard. She dropped to her knees in front of Jem and Changed. Her hair swept closer to her head and turned as white as the sun. Her face, already pale, turned thin and nearly translucent. Her European features washed away, and her bones became longer. Jem glanced at the hand next to his heart, watching the thin fingers grow larger. Knuckles became more pronounced. Her blue veins grew smaller, and runes appeared over her skin. An iratze on the back of her hand. He watched the runes appear across her arm: agility, stealth, vision. Just over her heart, a familiar parabati rune bloomed into existence.

And when Tessa looked up from the floor, kneeling on both knees, Jem was staring into his own eyes.

“Jem, I went to the Ifrit Den because of you.”


	5. you'll surely be the death of me (but how could I have known?)

_Dear Nate,_

_I hesitate to call any day a bad day. It feels like the selfish thing to do. I’m blessed with days. I should be grateful for them, no matter what their contents. I should be grateful for the sun, even if I can’t see it. I should be grateful for my life, even if it’s painful. I should be grateful for you, even if I can’t see you. Calling today bad might call down ruin for tomorrow._

_But let the ruin come._

_I have to sleep on my stomach to relieve the pain from the lashes on my back. They whip me and whip me again. They give me no bandages. No ice. No medicine. They reassure me the pain will stop if I Change for them. And it’s true. I’ll Change and the pain from my whippings vanish. But only for a moment. I’m too weak. I can’t hold on. It’s like grasping at smoke. It’s so achievable, but it slips right through my fingers. And then the pain is back. I hope I bleed too much or to come down with fever. They might concede then. They might worry about me and take me to a hospital. I’m valuable. They reassure me of that much. Did you know about them? Did you fall into the same trap as me all those months ago? I wish you could advise me on escaping. Or better yet, I wish you would come here yourself. Prove you are alive. Prove I’m not alone in the world. I can’t even consider that. I never thought that would happen. Something as strong as family shouldn’t be able to vanish like this. It’s like throwing a stone at a tower and watching it crumble to dust._

_I suppose I took my health for granted all this time. I didn’t notice how good it felt to be alive before now. A lesson in humility I suppose._

Will folded the letter before he could read any more.

At this point, he ought to cast the letters into the fire. That was their original fate. He was the person to find them first, the day after meeting Tessa. While she was resting in the Institute, Charlotte and the others wanted to collect as much evidence as possible from the Dark Sisters’ house. He didn’t give a second thought to the stack of letters stuffed into a roller desk. They were unsealed, unaddressed. Charlotte kept them for a day before giving them back.

 _They’re Tessa’s_ , she said.

_For Tessa?_

_No_ , Charlotte replied. _She wrote them._

Will was meant to read them all and report back any vital information. Go over any information about the Dark Sisters or the Magister or the like. Will resolved to read them in an evening, skimming for mention of angels and demons and downworlders. Look for capital letters and bolded sentences. But the first letter tore him to pieces. It was long-winded. It was verbose as Dickens and as despairing as the Brontës. Even through the pain and fear, Tessa was clear. Her ideas and feelings were crisp. She could weave words in a way that felt personal. It was like seeing another soul laid out in front of him like a tapestry. And every thread and stitch was similar to his own.

He didn’t let himself read another that night. But then came the night he met Tessa in the library. He should have been on guard. She listed off books she loved, and Will was struck by the fact that he hadn’t just read the same books. He’d loved them as well. He should have withdrawn then. It was easy enough after five years of practice. He could have insulted her taste. He could have alluded to his own vices or her naivety. But it was like dancing with his other half. He was already in step. It wasn’t a dance of effort. He moved and she copied. She would change the subject, and Will found that he had the answer waiting. The conversation came too easily. It wasn’t until she brought up his parents that he’d been shocked back to reality.

 _I know you’re an orphan_ , she had said.

 _I_ never _said I was an orphan._

That was all the reminder he needed. He left her in the hall, insulted and embarrassed. And he read every letter that night. One after the other.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the accusations Tessa had thrown at him in the atrium. And despite the severity of the situation, Will couldn’t help but be affected by the wrong things.

_You were my first kiss, but I was your first too, wasn’t I?_

Will hung his head, folding and unfolding the letter in his hands. Guilt washed over him. Again. He should be used to it by now. Why did it feel so fresh? Her first kiss was in the attic. The attic. When he was drenched and sick and smelled of blood. The vampire blood changed his inhibitions, but it didn’t damage his memory. He remembered every detail. He remembered how Tessa maneuvered around the wood beams. How she struggled to bring the bucket closer without sloshing it around on the floor. He remembered the feeling of ecstasy when he realized he could take the clasp from her hair. 

He remembered pushing her away. Shoving her away. Without an explanation.

He remembered insulting her in the same attic weeks later.

He remembered the hurt in her eyes, the terrible sadness replacing new love.

_You were my first kiss._

Will crumbled the letter into a ball and glared at the fiery hearth in his room. He stood up from his bed and took five long strides to the fire. He didn’t deserve to have these letters. He could make excuses. He could pretend there was some nugget of knowledge to be gleaned from them, that they would give the Institute an edge on Mortmain if he looked again. But that was a lie. He’d memorized every line. Every _verse._ He knew how Tessa’s handwriting struggled between writing the letters I and J. He knew which words she had trouble spelling. He could almost tell when she wanted to write about something else. When she was hiding the pain of her day by writing something nice for her brother. All because Tessa and he were the same. But she could write, could _say_ the words that rested against her heart and soul. And he could not.

He tossed the letter into the fire.

As he was watching it burn in the beautiful way paper does, his bedroom door opened.

Will turned, nervous that the guest would he was committing a crime similar to burning a great painting, to see Jem.

“Jem,” he gasped.

“Will. I…I need to talk to you.”

Will hesitated for a moment, glancing at the fire to ensure the paper was completely burned. A spark of guilt shot through him, realizing the letter was far from retrievable. Embers and stardust.

“Of course,” Will said. “I didn’t realize you were coming.”

“Well, I didn’t warn you.”

“Usually I can feel it,” Will said offhandedly. He glanced back at his bed, suddenly aware that twenty of Tessa’s letters were strewn over the covers and his dresser. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

“No,” Jem answered quickly. He glanced at the letters. “W-what are those? They look familiar.”

“Nothing,” Will said hastily, collecting them one by one. “Don’t mind them. What did you need to talk to me about?”

Will glanced at his parabati, studying his eyes.

“This is about Tessa.” Jem continued. “Something is wrong."


	6. you've been so still, barely beating at all

Will’s fears were assuaged quickly.

“She’s alright,” Jem clarified as they walked the halls of the Institute. The witchlights burned a serious green. Who could tell what time it was? Will often stayed up late, stayed out all hours of the night, but he felt especially tired. It could be ten in the evening. It could be five in the morning. Tessa’s predicament made time feel slow and fast all at once. Will wanted to make a mad dash for the infirmary after Jem had said ‘ _Something has happened’._ But his friend must have been unintentionally ominous. “It’s that she told me something.”

“What is it?” Will asked.

Jem’s eyes were dark. He smelled of sugar. He had just taken some of the _yin fen._ Years of being so close revealed secrets about people. Will knew little details about everyone in the Institute. Thomas used to name every stray cat he came across. Henry didn’t like to stand on carpet. Jessamine once bought a pair of men’s trousers. Will saw them lying out in her room once before. Charlotte had a pen pal in Madrid. Will could tell that Jem had taken the drug. He always could. Will didn’t blame Jem for taking more of the drug in the present moment. Stressful times necessitated solutions, even if the solutions were less than ideal. In a strange way, it gave him comfort to be so familiar with someone. Despite everything. Despite the curse. Even if those who loved him were cursed, he couldn’t help being fond of their quirks.

Jem liked to stand in running water. Touching the Thames disgusted most people— and for good reason. But it brought Jem something valuable. Peace of mind, maybe.

Jem liked the smell of rosin. It improved his mood.

Jem wanted to bake sometimes, but he never got around to it.

But Tessa…

Tessa looked at the sky as attentive as one would read a book. On the excursion to visit Aloysius Starkweather, her eyes were glued to the thunderheads on the horizon. Then they were fixed on the stars.

Tessa would twist her hair clockwise when she pinned it up. Never anticlockwise.

Tessa. His Tessa. Who knew exactly what questions she ought to ask to draw him out.

Jem hesitated to answer. “You were reading Tessa’s letters,” he said.

Will felt his stomach tighten. “I was.”

“I knew you had them,” Jem continued. “But it only just occurred to me that you might _read_ them. Have you learned anything?”

“Learned anything?” Will repeated.

“Why else would you be reading them? Unless you’re trying to glean something from them?”

Will cleared his throat. “I thought Tessa told you something. What did she say?”

Jem focused his gaze on Will, squinting in the low witchlight of the hallway. “She alluded that there was a motive in going to the Ifrit Den. Her motives weren’t so ghastly as you believe.”

“Oh? There’s a good reason for her to take the drug? I thought you were furious. You should be furious, James. We spoke in the library—“

Jem blanched. “I can’t be angry. Not with Tessa. That would be... unimaginable.”

“You’re terribly forgiving at times, Jem.”

To Will’s surprise, his _parabati_ flushed in anger.

“And you’re terrible all of the time,” Jem seethed. “You’re terrible to everyone. Do you ever consider how you affect the people around you, Will? Are you so intent on pushing me— _Tessa—_ away? To what end? To what end, Will? People are trying to do good by each other, trying to solve problems, make life better or longer or easier. And you’re settling for making it worse. How long have you acted this way around me? I _know_ how you act around Tessa.”

“James—“

“Am I _James_ now?” Jem glared, face cast into green shadows by the witchlight. “I know about the attic, Will.”

“The _attic_?”

“Of course, you didn’t tell me yourself. I can only assume it was for selfish reasons. You kiss Tessa, embarrass her, insult her. Why not tell me about that Will? Were you afraid of looking _worse_ in front of _James Carstairs_? The single person in the world left to excuse you and your actions?”

“How do you know about the attic?” Will couldn’t feel his fingertips. There was only one way Jem could know about the attic.

“Or, of course, there’s the matter of your propositioning Tessa after she nearly died in the Sanctuary. After losing Agatha and Thomas. After her own brother betrayed her, _sold_ her! You call her a whore. And yet you read her letters like you’re entitled to her thoughts. After everything you’ve done! I don’t have to understand everything you do, Will. I gave you the space you so desperately wanted. James Carstairs, of all people, knows that you’re putting on a façade for the grand majority of it. You have _virtues_. I don’t know why you don’t embrace them. I don’t see why you didn’t let your best friend—your _parabati—_ know about any of this. But it seems you’re not just content to have everyone think the worst of _you._ You must have everyone think the worst of Tessa Gray.”

This was the second time this week Jem had yelled at Will, and Will couldn’t decide what to do with himself. Had it been anyone else, he could have managed. Charlotte. Henry. Jessamine. Anyone. He could laugh in their faces. But not Jem. He wanted to sink to the floor and beg for forgiveness. He wanted to explain, explain about his last days in Wales, the Pyxis in his father’s study. He wanted to explain that he _loved_ Tessa. He would rather be a bastard, the world’s most unforgivable monster, than have her feel an ounce of pain. If Tessa loved him, the world would end.

“Jem, you don’t understand.”

“Make me understand!” Jem shouted.

“I can’t—“ Will tried to say.

“Tessa went to the Ifrit Den to look for a cure,” Jem spat at Will. “She went for me. She went because she still has hope that I’m going to live, and she’s more willing to fight for it than you are! She didn’t take _yin fen_! She was attacked!”

“That’s not what she said—“

“You didn’t give her the time to explain!” And Jem reached forward and pushed against Will’s shoulders. Will stumbled back. For a moment, Jem looked at his hands. As if he was shocked at their power. As if he expected less. But he continued. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Will balked.

“It’s true,” Jem said. “Will, you think you know people so well. You’ve read those letters more than once. That much is obvious. You think you have the window into people’s souls, but you couldn’t even tell Tessa’s motives tonight. What makes you believe you know her at all?”

Will was spared from responding. The sound of running echoed down the Institute halls. The sound of breaking ceramic, a splash of water. Charlotte speaking rapidly. The commotion was coming from the Infirmary.

Will started to run. He left Jem behind.

 _Tessa_. She’s worse. She’s in pain. She’s broken something, she’s not breathing, she’s withdrawing. Will couldn’t formulate coherent thought. Jem said it so plainly. He was in love with Tessa. How could Will deny it at this point? Years of lying and acting couldn’t protect him from the truth. Jem could see it in his eyes. Not even that! Jem had taken one look at the letters scattered across Will’s bedroom, all of them folded and refolded into tatters, and he’d known. There would be time to fix this.

He could lie to Jem. _I’m not in love with Tessa._

He could excuse his running later. _Why shouldn’t I be concerned for her safety?_

He could excuse the letters. _Charlotte wanted me to read them._

He could fix this.

He could fix this.

He could fix this.

Will crossed the Institute, going up and down staircases, rounding bannisters. His shoes caught a rug once, and he tumbled forward. He would feel the pain in his elbows and hands later. The noises got louder. He found the atrium above the Infirmary. But the sight before him brought only confusion.

Charlotte was standing with a Silent Brother, yes. They looked dower, but there was something else. Confusion. Worry?

But what Will saw next made his heart sink to his shoes.

Jem strode out of the Infirmary doors. Wearing the clothes he had been wearing in the Library. He had his walking stick in hand. His stride was just as lethargic as it had been an hour ago. Jem hadn’t found the time to take the yin fen. Jem felt the weight of Will’s gaze and raised his head to address him.

“There you are, Will! Something’s gone wrong. Sophie’s unconscious. I went to get Charlotte, but—Tessa is missing. We don’t know where she’s gone. Have you seen her? She’s not with you, is she?”

Will gripped the bannister. Gripped it tighter.

His head turned to the hallways he had left behind him. The doors stretched into eternity, lit only by the witchlight.

The halls were empty.


	7. you're far too beautiful to love me

“She was just here,” Will said breathlessly, the fingertips of one hand sliding along the wood paneling of the Institute’s hallway. Jem was quite nearly out of breath after following Will through the hallways. Will had the fevered energy of a man possessed. Jem watched as Will, ten strides ahead of him, clipped the corner of a bannister, taking a hit to the ribs. Will hadn’t paused, hadn’t cried out. He pressed one hand to his side, but his stride didn’t falter. He scrambled through the halls until they were both outside of Will’s bedroom. Jem watched as his parabati ripped into the room, throwing letters to the ground in his wake.

“What is this?” Jem asked.

“She’s not here,” Will said. He glanced at a letter in his hand, flipped it front to back, and slammed it down on his bedside table. “Jem, I don’t know where she went. She was here a moment ago—“

“What’s the matter?” Jem tried to say. “We’ll find her.”

“Will we?”

“She’s bound to be around here somewhere. Tessa isn’t one to vanish—“

Jem stopped short, eyes meeting Will’s for a long, terrible moment before turning to the smoldering fire in the hearth. Tessa was one to vanish. She’d slipped out from under their careful watch, their protection, just hours ago. _For yin fen._ Jem bit down on the thought. After Tessa accused him in the Infirmary, Jem withdrew. He couldn’t hear that it was his fault that she’d taken the drug, even if it were true. He’d withdrawn from her grip and excused himself from the room. After a lifetime of fighting demons and crazed downworlders, even mechanical monstrosities, Jem knew what hell looked like. He saw Agatha and Thomas’ bodies in the atrium that day. He saw his parents die all those years ago. There were so many things to keep him awake at night. So much blood and so many bones. It could fill every moment of every dream for the rest of his life.

How could he have known that his own face would cause him such horror?

Less than a week ago, he’d committed the worst sin he could have made when he told Tessa how he felt about her. Had his emotions not gotten the better of him, Jem could have stayed silent. He could have remained silent for a hundred years. Longer. Because Tessa deserved more than him. But he confessed to her, in so many words, how she occupied his thoughts. How unfair it was that he should want her _that way_ while she could not want him in the same regard. Just less than a week ago when she’d kissed him. Let him kiss her. Let his hands comb through her hair as if it were a jumble of silk ribbons. Danced that beautiful dance on their feet before falling back onto his bed. He could still feel her hands his hair, on his face. It was like a brand. And the way she’d looked with her hair pooled around her, like a Botticelli painting. She had smiled at him then.

To see her grimace in pain, to Change into him and bring his hubris staring back at him, it had been too much. Who knew such pain could be wrought from such happiness?

“I thought she was you,” Will was saying. “She Changed. I see that now. But it wasn’t just that. She pretended to _be_ you. She came to my room. She was speaking with me. I knew something was wrong when she started yelling at me—“

“She yelled at you?”

“Yes,” Will said. “I thought it was odd. You never yell.”

“I punched you a few days ago,” Jem observed. “It’s well within my power to yell.”

“She knew things you didn’t,” Will amended.

“What don’t I know?” Jem asked offhand. Will was his parabati. Yes, Will had his secrets, but no one was in those confidences. It was universal. Will didn’t talk about his parents. Will didn’t explain why he pretended to be a cad. He didn’t explain the benders, the midnight walks, the supposed women of the night. No one knew why Will acted the way he did. Jem took solace in that.

But Will hesitated to answer.

“What don’t I know?” Jem repeated.

Will looked shaken. His eyes wouldn’t rise to meet Jem’s.

“Will, what happened? What did Tessa know?” Jem watched the fire light play across Will’s features. Will seemed…gaunt. He looked awful. He looked how Jem felt. Wretched. But Will wasn’t addicted to yin fen. Will wasn’t dying. Will didn’t kiss a girl three days ago just to have the girl seek out a drug that was killing him. So why did he look this way? “Will, what did Tessa say?”

That seemed to snap Will back to attention.

“It was about you,” Will said.

Jem blinked. He tried to remain neutral. It was an art to hide one’s emotions, almost a game even. And Jem had been playing it most of his life. It was game when the Lightwoods called him an addict. It was a game when the warlocks in the Ifrit Den goaded him about his mortality. It was a game. An unenjoyable one, but one he played nonetheless. After his night with Tessa days ago, he’d made a point to keep himself schooled. In line. Even if that meant appearing withdrawn. But in this moment, Jem’s voice betrayed him. His voiced cracked. “What did she say?”

“I didn’t understand her when she first arrived,” Will frowned. “She was so far out of it. And I didn’t give her the time to fully explain. I just jumped to conclusions—“

“What did she _say_?”

“She went there for _you_. The Ifrit Den. She wasn’t looking for the drug, Jem. She was looking for a cure.”

A moment of silence stretched between them. Jem considered Will’s words for a moment as the fire rose, enticed by a sudden gust through the chimney. Jem considered the night’s events. Tessa’s disappearance after dinner. Her failure to tell either of them. Perhaps not telling Will because of his recent encounter in the Den. Perhaps excluding himself because she knew how he’d react to the idea. Jem considered her words from before.

_Jem, I went to the Ifrit Den because of you._

“No,” Jem said.

“She went to interrogate them.”

“She didn’t.”

“She was attacked in the Den.”

“No.”

“Jem, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t mean to assume, but I didn’t understand. She must have been trying to find information in the only place she could. She mentioned your addiction to me once. I brushed it off. I thought she was curious, just curious. I didn’t know she was going to act on it. I couldn’t see _how_ she could act on it. We need to find her. Jem?”

Jem stopped listening. With one hand on the mantle, Jem brought the other to his face as he began to cry. The knot in his throat had been choking him ever since he saw in the Infirmary. And he couldn’t breathe for it all. Hot tears began running down his face. It hurt. It was too hot. The tears felt like they were burning as they rolled down his face, down his neck. He tried to suppress the first sob. His shoulders curled forward and Jem sunk to the floor beside the hearth.

“Jem,” Will said, lowering himself beside him. “James.”

And Jem started to sob. It scared him how fast and terrible the tears came to him. They wouldn’t stop despite how he tried to reign himself in, play the game. He wiped his face with one sleeve, but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t even speak through it all.

Jem wasn’t a stranger to crying. He wasn’t above crying in pain. He cried over Thomas and Agatha’s deaths. He cried for years after his parents died. Jem cried in fear of the past. Fear of the future. In fear of death. In loss. In anger. In sadness. But Jem couldn’t say he was sad in this moment. Jem couldn’t quite say what the emotion was. And despite all the tears, the emotion was welcome. It was an unwelcome thought. _Tessa did this on purpose. She loves you. She fought for you. You’re beautiful, James Carstairs._

“I don’t deserve this,” Jem said between sobs. “She shouldn’t have gone to the Ifrit Den.”

“She shouldn’t have,” Will agreed. “But you deserve the world, James.”

“I don’t deserve it,” Jem insisted, head in his hands.

“Tessa believed you did.”

Jem hung his head between his shoulders, crying silently. Will sat beside him, putting one hand on his back. Jem shook his head for a moment, trying to build up the strength to speak.

“She’s wrong,” Jem said. Suddenly, he regretted the evening he’d kissed her. Not all of it. Definitely not all of it. He regretted how it ended. He regretted the panic, the spilled _yin fen_. He regretted his instance that she leave the room. He regretted how he avoided her in the days after. He should have ignored the _yin fen_. He should have kissed her again.

“I believe Tessa would argue the point,” Will said, rubbing Jem’s back. “And so would I.”

“You can’t say this is justified,” Jem insisted.

“You’re worth the world, Jem. I’m just ashamed I wasn’t the first to act on it.”

She’d been walking for an eternity. Tessa was lucid enough to realize that this might not be true. It could have been ten minutes. The only thing she had to track the time was her own heartbeat, and she couldn’t trust its metronome. The worst of it was over. She wasn’t a prisoner in her own skin, chasing every one of her senses into madness. The world was still loud, but it wasn’t deafening. Her skin was still sensitive, but she could no longer count the individual rain drops as they collided with her.

Tessa didn’t leave the Institute for the noise, though it was horribly loud with the vaulted ceilings and long hallways. She didn’t leave to go back to the Ifrit Den, though Will would think so.

That was it.

Will thought the worst of her.

Jem did too, Tessa realized. Their conversation in the Infirmary had been so fast. She didn’t realize what Jem was upset about until it was too late. She thought he was upset that she’d gone at all. She could justify that act. But Jem thought she’d went to the Ifrit Den for the same reason Will had just three days ago. Tessa needed to leave the Institute because the two most important people in the world thought the worst of her.

Nate left her to die.

Aunt Harriet died.

Will got her out of the Black Sisters’ house.

Jem told her that no man worth having would _care._

Will, who read her letters.

Jem, who deserved more.

Tessa couldn’t bear the thought of being shunned in the one place she could call home, by the only people she could call family. So she left. It started as a walk. A step away. Just a little distance. And then a little more. She’d walked this path before. How different could it be with a little rain and heartsickness?


	8. late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life

Magnus Bane made a few mistakes in his life and he was willing to admit them. He’d spent half a century claiming that champagne was inferior to chardonnay. He was slow to warm up to the use of electricity. He started a small scuffle in 1805 that resulted in a multigenerational family feud. He lost his favorite apartment in a bet forty years ago. On dark days, Magnus found himself standing outside that building, missing the crown molding and ridiculous additions meant to add convenience. The milk door. The dumb waiter. Servants’ quarters. The whispering arches. And he’d lost it on _cards_.

But tonight, Magnus made the mistake of sneaking a bit of Woolsey Scott's alcohol. Felt pretty damn happy about it in the moment. Finding the stuff was an accomplishment; the werewolf was so greedy with his liquor. Thirty minutes later, Magnus was convinced that it wasn’t alcohol. It felt like sparkling cyanide going down. Some werewolf death wish of a drink. It tasted like the Thames, but alcohol wasn’t supposed to taste _good_. Magnus thought the color was funny, but some alcohol looked funny. But no. Magnus was left with the lovechild of the stomach flu and a hangover. Magnus couldn’t even drag himself up the staircase of Camille Belcourt’s townhouse. He was also too proud to ruin his favorite couches. So Magnus fell asleep in a cold bathtub, fully clothed, thoroughly drenched.

Had he been a little less inebriated, Magnus could have fixed this condition. But as it was, Magnus didn’t trust himself. In his state, he could barely keep from being violently ill. Any attempt at magic could very well make it worse. Or he could inadvertently turn himself into waterfoul. Or lose all of his hair in the process. So, he was doomed to wait in the bathtub. If he lost a toe or two to frostbite, he could fix it in the morning.

And he would stay away from Woolsey Scott’s quote-unquote liquor.

Magnus sunk below the water, letting the cold water run over his face, his nose, his ears. Let it ruin his hair, he couldn’t care less. He could hear his heartbeat. And something else. The floorboards creaking? Breaking? Popping?

 _Camille_ , he thought. _You old bat. You would buy a house ridden with termites. I’ll be lucky if the house doesn’t come down around me. This wouldn’t have happened at my old apartment._ Treated wood didn’t get termites. If you put the right spells on a place at the tight time— and Magnus had— the place would last centuries. No dry rot or termites or mold or —what was that noise? Thunder?

Magnus decided to ignore it again. If someone was shouting in the street, that was their problem. It was too late at night to be shouting at all. Everyone should be at home, drinking good alcohol and whispering to someone special. That would be nice. It would be the sensible thing to do. But no, there had to be loud people in London at three in the morning. And they had to be outside Camille’s home.

Magnus heard the sound of cracking wood. Before he could rise from the water, hands grabbed his shoulders and lifted him from it. He blinked against the water running into his eyes.

“Woolsey,” Magnus laughed. “I didn’t realize the drinks were yours—“

“Were you trying to drown yourself?”

“No, I was swimming,” Magnus wheezed, reaching to clear the water from his face. He blinked against the light. “You’re not Woolsey.”

“I’m afraid I’m not,” Will Herondale said. “Now get out of the tub.”

“You’ll find me completely useless tonight,” Magnus warned.

“I doubt that.”

“It’s alright if you doubt me; it doesn’t change the fact that I’m blitzed out of my mind. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a hot bath.”

“You’re _in_ a bath,” Will said.

“Yes, but it’s not a hot one, is it? Keep up, keep up. It’s what you’re supposed to do. Cold bath and then a hot bath over and over again until you feel like the living again.” Magnus flashed Will a charming smile, but found that the boy wasn’t having it. “I haven’t made any progress, you know. I told you, if I come across a lead—“

“This isn’t about that,” Will said hastily. “ _We_ are here about something else.”

“My word, you haven’t been threatened by _another_ demon have you? You children can’t take the weekend off, can you?” Magnus rolled his eyes, standing from the tub. He felt his socks squish unpleasantly in his shoes. Dreadful. He must look like one of those drunken men they fish out of the Thames. Through the pounding headache and rolls of nausea, Magnus attempted to ignore the embarrassment of anyone seeing him in such a state.

“Tessa is missing,” a different voice said.

Henry Branwell poked his head into the bathroom.

“Oh, no, there’s more of you.” Magnus sighed.

“Tessa was attacked,” Will explained.

“Aren’t you kids always under some kind of duress or—“

“She was forced to take yin fen,” Jem Carstairs said, moving into the doorframe. “She’s missing. We would be gratified if you would help us find her.”

Magnus slicked his hair back over his head with one cold hand. He let a roll of nausea wash over him before collecting himself. “I’m assuming you lot had nothing to do with her taking the yin fen.”

“Why would we have anything to do with it?” Will Herondale grated.

"Now would be a bloody grand time for you to be sober, Magnus," Jem noted.

"Oh, we're swearing now," Magnus observed.

"You'll have to forgive me in these circumstances," Jem said. "Tessa isn't in the Institute. We've looked everywhere. Every room. She's still under the effects of the...the drug. We don't know where she's gone. We've already gone to the Ifrit Den to try and find her, but she's not there. But she's alone. Mortmain could take her at any moment, Magnus. She's defenseless."

Magnus raised an eyebrow, slowly pulling a hand-towel from the rack. They were monogramed with Camille's initials. Magnus thought for a moment whether or not he should keep these. Camille wouldn't be back in London for the remainder of the century. She wouldn't have use of these little towels for years. He might have to redecorate. "Defenseless," Magnus echoed. "How did our little minx get out from under your noses? I thought you prided yourselves on being observant. Don't you give yourselves little doodles to make your eyesight better or something?"

"Magnus, she's missing."

"Yes, you've mentioned that. I'm simply observing that it's interesting that our American sweetheart has escaped the watchful eye of five shadowhunters."

Will looked to the bathroom floor while Jem stood a little straighter.

"She's Changing," Jem explained. "And she can't control it. It's the drug. It's overwhelming her. We don't know what its doing to her exactly. But you can agree that it's wiser to have her among friends rather than not."

Magnus didn't hide his interest. "I don't recall seeing Tessa's gifts in person. Who is she impersonating?"

"We don't know," Will and Jem said simultaneously.

"But then how do you know about this newfound affliction?" Magnus teased.

The boys stayed silent.

"You want my help," Magnus observed. "And you can't find Tessa on your own because even if she was stood in front of you, you might not recognize her."

Will looked up from beneath wet pieces of hair. He nodded.

Magnus sighed. "Well, I suppose I should do something about my state. Give me a moment to collect myself."

\--

Tessa stood in front of a marble statue.

The room was full of the things. Packed. They were all pieces of art, but crammed so close together, it gave the impression of unwanted furniture. Bits of rock carved to look like people, if people were fourteen foot tall. There were statues of a wounded Achilles, Artemis stringing her bow, of warriors mid-swing. Half of the statues were covered with white tarps, as if dust would ruin the masterpieces. But one particular statue grabbed her attention. Cassandra. The seer. The cursed priestess of Apollo, doomed to make prophesies no one would believe. The marble statue was humble, compared to the work that surrounded it. Just a woman in Greecian dress. Curly hair pulled up. Hand pressed to her mouth in worry.

As if she were seeing too much.

All the loud horror of the future.

All the things that could be prevented.

All the life and love lost over the years.

Tessa's fingers itched to touch the statue. She knew better than to focus on the smells of dust and wallpaper glue around her. She shut out the sight of stars in the sunroof. She could shut out the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears. But Tessa put her hand on the marble statue. She laid a hand on Cassandra's marble feet and felt the Change roll over her again. She felt the bones of her face shift and crack under the skin. She felt her bones lengthen and the fabric of her clothes tear into shreds. Tessa felt her spine straighten and elongate until she was looking the fourteen foot statue in the eye. It felt like dying. She was spending herself too quickly. Faster than the Black sisters had spent her. Tessa met the statue's gaze for a moment before feeling something break inside her. She had the sensation of spending a spool of thread to its last. It was as if all the air left Tessa's body in one go. She felt the Change desert her, and Tessa crumpled to the floor of the National Gallery.

Tessa could only roll to one side, gasping for air that wouldn’t come, and cry.

She’d been guaranteed a warlock’s life. Immortality. She spent hours and weeks crying over the prospect.

A lifetime of seeing everyone she loved die before her.

But Tessa couldn’t think past the next minute, the next inhalation.

When she heard her name resounding off the walls of the Gallery, she collapsed completely, lapsing into unconsciousness.

Will found Tessa, lying in a heap in the midst of a hundred marble statues. Her clothes- the clothes she'd been wearing when she looked like Jem- were torn to tatters. Ripped as if she'd tried to pry them off her body, ripped across she chest and leg. They were rags, not clothes. Will was so shocked by his discovery that he didn't immediately look away. She was turned away from him, leaving her back exposed to him. He kissed Tessa in the past. He'd seen her in not but a nightgown after she'd cried out from a nightmare. Will thought of Tessa throughout his waking hours, and his dreams drifted to her otherwise. But nothing could have prepared Will to see Tessa laid out this way. Like one of the statues come to life and wilting under the weight of living. Something broken by the task of breathing. Tessa’s shoulder blades were bare. He caught a glimpse of the small of her back.

Will froze.

He averted his eyes as soon as he realized he should, before he could glimpse something that might haunt him.

He rested his eyes on a statue of Danaë and baby Perseus lying in the wooden chest. A terrible thought washed over Will. Jem was dying from the drug. Jem's days were numbered. Jem suffered for years under the drug, but what if Tessa didn't have Jem's good fortune? What if the drug burned her candle at both ends? What if Tessa’s reaction to the drug was so much more dire? Will's attention snapped to her body again, desperate to see the rise and fall of her chest.

Tessa couldn’t be dead.

The candle couldn’t have burnt itself out.

This wasn’t how the story ended.

Will thought of that night in the Sanctuary— how long had it been? A month? Two? When Mortmain held her limp, bleeding body by the fountain. Will thought she was dead then. A hopeful voice in his head whispered that Tessa could act dead. She did it well. Shed fooled him once. But a less than hopeful voice whispered that he wouldn’t be so lucky again. He was Will Herondale. Good things didn’t come to him. Maybe that night in the Sanctuary was foreshadowing for tonight’s events.

“Tessa,” Will whispered, sinking to his knees beside her.

To hell with averting his eyes. To hell with all of it. To hell with the rules, the years of pain. The curse didn’t matter if Tessa died, did it? He should have said something. He should have told her everything. Every line of every letter she’d written in confinement! He should have told her that he loved the words she used. The command she had over language. She could write the sun out of the sky. He loved her.

“Tessa, please,” Will said, reaching a hand out to touch her shoulder. If he had expected a fever, a fever like Jem often had, his expectations weren’t met. Tessa’s shoulders were as cold as marble. He ran a hand down her arm, waiting for a spike of heat. Waiting for her to draw a way, to move closer, to do something, to do anything. His hand curled around her fingers, he drew Tessa’s hand to his heart. “Tessa, wake up.”

The effort of pulling her hand closer caused Tessa's body to roll onto her back. Her hair fanned out over the stone floors, curling like wisps of smoke. He surveyed her face with all the love and horror he could muster. Her eyes were closed. Her lips were open ever so slightly. No blood. No flush. He raised her fingers to his face, pressing them to the side of his face.

_Please be warm. Wake up. Say it's an act. Wake up and cast me away. Say you need help, but not from me. Say you can't forgive me. Say it's improper for me to touch you at all. Just say something, Tessa._

"Tessa, I'm begging you, please wake up."

Her chest didn't rise. For a terrible moment, Will wondered if he was wasting time like this. Should he be running with her body? Running through the streets to find a doctor, a warlock, a Silent Brother, anyone to revive her? Should he be shouting at the powers that be? Shouting in vengeance or in desperation? _Save her._

But Will could only draw Tessa's limp body into his arms, resting her on his legs. If he'd been a little less focused, Will might have noticed the irony of their arrangement. The Pieta. But he could only draw to mind flashes of Tessa's letters.

_I keep imagining the world and all its glory. There's so much out there, and I'll never have the chance to experience it. My heart is boundless where my body isn't._

_It's a lovely thought, to be loved. Though I wonder sometimes if people make it up. Surely there's nothing so grand as that. To wake up and know someone so well. To spend every minute of every day with them and still hunger for more. I can imagine that kind of love, but my imagination runs wild._

_I suppose I took my health for granted all this time. I didn’t notice how good it felt to be alive before now. A lesson in humility I suppose._

Will put a hand on Tessa's face, waiting for a muscle to twitch. Waiting for her eyes to shift under her eyelids.

"No, Tessa, please. My Tessa." Will stifled a sob as it rose in his throat.

He choked on it, pulling her body closer. He pressed her hand to his heart again, willing her to mimic its movements. He felt all four chambers of his heart contract in sequence, and he begged Tessa, "Please, please wake up. Tessa. My Tessa. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for assuming the worst. You were trying to save Jem. You were trying to save _our_ Jem. I can't— I should have been with you. I should have been fighting for a cure every second of every day. I should have left you alone, the moment we met; you wouldn't have had to deal with me. But as it stands. Please wake up. Tell me I'm awful. Tell me how I've failed you. Or else, I'll have to do it myself. And I prefer your voice to mine, Tess. You asked if anyone could really exist if no one loved them. You were never in danger of that, Tess. You were the last person who could be in danger of it. Please, I'm begging."

Tessa remained unresponsive. Will wondered if the crease in her brow was his imagination. Wondered if her fingers curling to touch his face was real or not.

He continued. "Tessa it's all a lie. I know how I've treated you. I know I pushed you away, and you were stupid enough to believe me. I was terrified of you. I was terrified that you knew how I felt about you, Tess. It must be written all over my face. Wake up, _please_. You saw right through me, Tess. I know you did. You heard every word I had, but you know it's a lie. I love you. I loved you the moment you hit me with that jug in the Black Sisters' house. I loved you when you went to a downworlder party and threw yourself at them to save your brother. When you came to the attic, I thought I was going crazy. I'm afraid to _think_ around you because it feels like you can read my thoughts on my face. You know me better than I do."

Will felt Tessa's fingers slide over his jaw and thread through the roots of his hair. A weak motion that he might have missed if it had been anyone else. Had it not been Tessa.

"Will!"

Will snapped to attention, raising his head up and away from Tessa's body. He realized then that his face was hot—and wet. But the voice hadn't come from Tessa. It was a familiar tenor.

"Where are you, Will?" Jem waded through the statues of Antigone and Cupid and Psyche, seraph blade in hand.

 _I'm here,_ Will tried to say, but his voice broke. He cleared his throat enough to whisper, " _Jem"._

"Magnus said she was here, but I haven't found anything. Well, I found one of my coats in the portrait gallery. Where are—"

Jem stopped, hand resting on the foot of a weeping Apollo. Will watched as Jem's expression broke from concern into horror. A horrible moment of silence passed, and the seraph blade slipped from Jem's hand. He stumbled back, losing his grip on the statue beside him. "Tessa," Jem whispered.


	9. i can see how this will end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the final chapter of Eyes Always Seeking! 
> 
> The chapter titles are from (in order)  
> Buzzcut Season by Lorde  
> Like Real People Do by Hozier  
> Sky Full of Song by Florence and the Machine  
> Self- by Will Wood and the Tapeworms  
> Like the Dawn by the Oh Hellos  
> Hello my Old Heart by the Oh Hellos  
> In Memoriam by the Oh Hellos  
> Cleopatra by the Oh Hellos  
> This Will End by the Oh Hellos

"Jem," Will wheezed. "She's alive. She's moving. Barely, but she's moving."

Jem scrambled forward, forgetting the seraph blade beside the statue of Apollo. He landed on his knees, banging them against the stone floor. The pain didn’t even register. He reached for the remnants of Tessa, whatever part of her Will wasn't holding. He reached for her other hand, moving her lower half into his lap.

“You’re sure?” Jem gasped. “Is she breathing?”

“She is,“ Will assured while Jem ran a hand over Tessa’s pulse. He moved one hand over her face, waiting to feel the movement of air.

“She is,” Jem echoed numbly. Tessa’s tattered clothes hung loose over her shoulders, exposing an uncharacteristic amount of skin. Jem halfways worried that some beast had attacked her, but her skin appeared unmarred. He began to shrug out of his overcoat. “What happened to her? Why is she like this? What happened to her clothes?”

“I don’t know; I found her like this,” Will said, propping Tessa’s head up by the neck. Jem covered Tessa with his coat. Her breathing was even. Shallow, as if she was only sleeping. “Magnus was right. The National Gallery.”

“He’s still in the other wing. Should we get him?”

“Yes,” Will said, though he did not rise from the floor. Neither did Jem. They shared a look for a moment, waiting for the other to get to their feet. They both waited for a long moment, watching expectantly. Will cracked a smile, letting out a relieved laugh. “Forgive me for breaking character, Jem. I find that I want to stay. But I’ll go if you want me to.”

Jem shook his head. “I know you care about people, Will. You may be the savant of literature, but I _can_ read a person.”

“You sound insulted.”

“It’s hard to insult me,” Jem assured him. “But I can’t fathom why you’re so hellbent on keeping your humanity a secret most of the time; you’re holding someone in your arms, Will.

“But I can’t let my reputation suffer for it, you see.” Will flashed a smile. “And it’s not _someone_. It’s Tessa.”

“You ass,” Jem said. “We aren’t out of the woods yet.”

“Forgive me. It’s quite easy to make jokes at a time like this.”

“In times like what?” Jem asked.

“Like when I’m relieved,” Will admitted.

Jem and Will looked at each other for a long moment. Jem watched Will’s eyes as they moved back and forth, looking at Jem’s two eyes. It was a strange sensation, to be taken in by another person. It shocked you back into your body. Instead of being trapped in your own mind, you were thrust back into your own body. You were real again. It was like holding a hand. That’s what all physical contact was about, wasn’t it? Recognition? The shocking realization that you’re real and _they’re_ real and you aren’t alone. It’s not just you stuck with the universe and all the problems in it. You’re real. And the other person can’t decide to look into your left eye or your right, as if one would reveal more than the other.

Jem sensed that Will said more than he wanted to, and he was watching Jem for a reaction. A bad reaction.

“I’m relieved too,” Jem said.

“She did this for you,” Will began to say.

“Don’t remind me,” Jem cut him off hastily.

“I wish I went with her,” Will continued to say. “I should have been looking for a cure along with her. I’ve wanted one, but she was _out there_. She was doing the work. And she didn’t trust me enough to enlist my help. I’ve pushed her away, Jem.”

“You push everyone away.”

“I know,” Will whispered. “But I wish I didn’t. Can you imagine? Everything would be so much better than it is now. At the very least, Tessa wouldn’t be in this state. Charlotte and Henry wouldn’t hate the sight of me.”

“Don’t say that,” Jem said. “They love y—“

“They don’t love me,” Will said angrily. He looked away from Jem then, putting a hand on the crown of Tessa’s head. After a moment, he continued, voice softer. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

Jem watched Will’s hand as it threaded gently through Tessa’s hair. Jem had given that asset a lot of thought in recent days, especially after the night in his room. The night the _yin fen_ had been spilt. He couldn’t wrap his head around his own thoughts, why he was so obsessed with Tessa’s hair. The texture of it. How it curled and settled on her shoulders. Part of Jem leaned toward the scientific answer: _he was unused to such long hair_. It was different from what he was used to. He didn’t have long hair nor had the chance to appreciate it often. Or to touch it. The other part of Jem knew it was the recognition. It was like looking someone in the eyes. It was about _seeing_ someone. To see Tessa with her hair down was a rarity. It was like seeing her for the first time all over again.

He squeezed Tessa’s fingers gently in his free hand. After a moment of expectant silence, Tessa’s fingers contracted around his. Jem watched as her other hand wrapped around Will’s. For a moment, the three of them sat quietly, holding on to each other, under the watchful eyes of marble pantheons.

_Dearest Nate,_

_I find myself blessed with ink and paper again. And I cannot help but admit that it’s a relief to write to you at all. To tell you anything. I’m not sure if you think about writing, or what it really is, but I have little else to occupy my thoughts. Well, little else that I enjoy. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Sending your thoughts, your purest thoughts and experiences, to someone else. Anyone else. Someone willing to listen. Isn’t that all that human history boils down to? Sharing thoughts in the best way that we are able?_

_And I realize that while I’m writing to you, Nate, you might not be the reader I receive. Mrs. Black and Mrs. Dark are not to be trusted. I’d be lucky to have anyone read my thoughts at all. I doubt the Dark Sisters deliver my letters. I almost believe they burn them the moment after I turn them over. So, I suppose it’s a blessing to have you. Dear Reader._

Magnus Bane exited the Infirmary, and Will Herondale folded the letter back into his jacket pocket.

“She’s resting,” Magnus said.

“Will she be alright when she wakes?” Jem asked, standing from his chair. It was nearly noon now. Instead of seeking out their respective beds, Will and Jem brought dining chairs to sit on outside the Infirmary. It was uncomfortable and perhaps a breach of etiquette, but neither cared. Charlotte checked on them often. Henry brought them coffee.

“If I’ve done my job correctly, yes.” Magnus continued. “But there’s a few notes. I don’t know how this will affect her ability to Change. Then yin fen may have changed something inside her. Second, I’ve done my best to erase the memory of the yin fen. She’ll have a desire for something she can’t name, but it will pass in time. But for this to work, I’ve…removed the last twenty-four hours from her mind. Eased them away. She won’t remember going to the Ifrit Den. She won’t remember the attack or anything that came after it.”

Will and Jem exchanged a glance.

“Is this a problem?” Magnus asked.

Will was the first to answer, tucking a piece of paper deeper into his pocket. “No. It won’t be a problem.”

“Good,” Magnus said. “I don’t enjoy playing with memory. It’s a messy thing. But the two of you mentioned her motives for going to the Ifrit Den was to find a cure for _someone’s_ affliction. Without the memory of her actions, our dear Tessa may be tempted to act again.” Magnus paused for a moment, looking between the two shadowhunters. “I have faith that you both can prevent that. Am I wrong?”

“You’re not wrong,” Jem said quietly. “We’ll talk with her.”

Magnus took a deep breath through his nose, and straightened his coat. “Good. Give Charlotte my regards. Make sure she’s eating well in the future. She’ll need it.”

“Charlotte?” Will asked while Jem asked, “Tessa?”

“Both,” Magnus smiled. “Now, my terrible friends, I have a prior engagement. There’s a party at Benedict Lightwoods’s house that’s approaching, and I’m obliged to go. So, you’ll have to excuse me to get the sleep that was so heinously robbed from me.”


End file.
